Proposed garbage contract put on hold

San Francisco supervisors today didn’t outright dump the Department on the Environment’s pick for which company should get the city’s lucrative garbage contract, but they balked at signing off on the plan, saying there remain too many unanswered questions to move forward.

The Board of Supervisors’ Budget and Finance Committee was set to vote on whether to award a $112 million contract to the company Recology to bury almost 5 million tons of San Francisco’s garbage in a landfill 130 miles away in Yuba County over the next 10 years.

Instead of voting on the contract, supervisors opted to delay consideration to the call of the chair.

Backers and opponents of the Recology proposal packed the City Hall hearing. Among those opposed were representatives of a rival company, Waste Management Co., which operates the Altamont landfill in Alameda County where San Francisco’s garbage is now dumped. The company is hoping to keep the city’s business.

A contingent of Yuba County residents also showed up hoping the Recology proposal would be scrapped.

On the other side were Recology supporters, including business leaders, who praised the company’s environmental record and status as a worker-owned company with strong community ties.

Among the issues that supervisors want to explore further are whether the Port of San Francisco can host a transfer station on its waterfront property, and whether the rubbish then could be shipped to a landfill by barge — both of which could generate new jobs in the city; whether the component of the contract that deals with hauling the garbage out of San Francisco could be competitively bid; and whether the Yuba County landfill makes the best sense economically and environmentally.

Officials with the city’s Department on the Environment believe that the Recology bid would be the greenest and the cheapest.

But Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi said it’s worth taking more time to be sure. ”I had hoped for a more visionary plan that would leverage our underutilized port assets and create more jobs for San Franciscans while protecting rate-payer pockets,” he said. ”If this cannot be achieved, then we must secure the next best plan.”